


i need more dreams (and less life)

by xerampelinae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Lord Of The Rings AU, M/M, Micro AU, Rogue One AU, Trauma Dreams, i promise the character death is only in dreams processing traumatic events
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-06-19 17:09:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15514542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: “I think my brain’s working through some things through the lens of movies we used to watch together,” Keith says, because he’s tired enough and trusts Shiro enough.“Tell me?” Shiro murmurs. Keith nods.-AKA, processing trauma using movie plots





	1. transmission impossible

**Author's Note:**

> Rogue One au

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks. He looks as exhausted as he’s been since his return, weary to the soul and bone. 

“Just some weird dreams,” Keith admits. “They’ll pass soon enough. They always do.”

-

They’ve done it. The plans have been transmitted from the relay tower successfully--it is up to the Rebel Fleet now. Shiro and Keith support each other with aching, injured bodies as they leave Sendak behind on the platform. The Death Star--Zarkon’s flagship now--blooms on the horizon. This is the last dawn this planet will know; if it survives, it will not be the same.

Shiro and Keith have no hope of escape or survival from that same end, and yet their hearts are too full of hope to feel hopeless as they descend and collapse as one into the beach’s sands. It is a comfort beyond words to have come so far together and to not be alone here, at the end of them. They do not speak as they enfold themself into a tight embrace.

A terrible light spills outward from the horizon. They are dead before the shockwave hits.

Keith wakes gasping, heart too full of emotions he can’t swallow or name, eyes searching for Shiro and settling on him in the dark.

-

“You can tell me about them, if you want,” Shiro says, settling in close. The pilot’s bunk they’re sharing would be cramped only to a broad, fully-grown Galra--it turns out that the Black Lion’s berth is a little more generously sized than the other lions’, but that makes sense with the size of its former pilot--but Keith and Shiro lie close together, as if the wolf is still curled up by Keith as usual rather than trailing Krolia. 

“I think my brain’s working through some things through the lens of movies we used to watch together,” Keith says, because he’s tired enough and trusts Shiro enough.

“Tell me?” Shiro murmurs. Keith nods.


	2. on the fields of pelennor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith takes on a Witch King. LotR au.

“No man of a woman born can defeat me,” the Witch King Haggar hisses, clawed hands alight with violet crackling energy.

“I am of no woman born,” Keith says, feeling his dam’s heritage bare its sharp teeth and predator’s eye, and puts the star-born luxite blade into the Witch King. They scream together, and then Keith knows nothing.

-

The field is full of the dead. Keith can barely keep to his feet with the aches and injuries of his last fight, as he picks his way through more and less familiar armor. He stumbles to his knees and crawls the last stretch, cradling the broken arm as at last he comes to what he’s been searching for since the Witch King reached the field and struck down the King on his steed.

Shiro’s pinned beneath his mount, even still, blood at the corner of his mouth. But he looks up at Keith’s approach, reaches up to brush his scarred cheek with a fond smile. 

“I know your face, Keith,” Shiro says.

Keith smiles down at him, tears welling. To be known again--for so long he had been lost to Shiro’s memory, for all the time foul influence had subsumed--is worth so much, even the pain.

“My eyes darken,” Shiro admits. Keith kneels close, strokes his hair clear of his face.

“No,” Keith whispers. “No. I’m going to save you, Shiro.”

“But you already did,” Shiro says. “Keith, my body is broken. You have to let me go.”

Keith has no words for this. He has never had words for this, no matter how many times Shiro faces death. For the way Shiro put himself forward at the front lines, because if his days were few then he must make them ones that mattered. And now--Shiro says his name once, and falls silent. Still as death. Keith crumples forward into the cold shelter of Shiro’s shoulder as he keens and weeps.

-

The soldier moved through the scattered ranks of the dead, seeking out the faces and armor of friends, to see who lives and who must be borne to the barrows of the ancestors.

The next face stops her in her tracks, lets fall sword and helm as she runs and falls to her knees. “No,” she wails. “No--Keith--”

Keith merely spills from her cradled arms, limp and silent.

-

“You can’t just--” Keith sobs, kneeling with his forehead bowed forward to press into the mattress. “--you can’t just go and die. Not again. You can’t do that to me.”

“Keith?” Shiro says, drawing him up into his arms and looking him over. “What’s wrong?”

Keith looks at Shiro, at the way his hand stabilizes Keith while leaving a buffer for his injured arm where it’s still tucked into the sling. His chest shakes with a stifled sob, and then another. “You’re going to have to live forever,” he whispers, “because I don’t think this universe can take another Zarkon and Honerva.”

For a long moment Shiro looks at Keith, and then, absurdly, laughs. “Gods,” he whispers, “just promise me we’d look better at ten thousand years old.”

“We’d have to moisturize,” Keith says mulishly. He sniffles; when he speaks again, it’s with more levity. “I’d look terrible in Haggar’s robes. How many times do you think I’d trip over the hem of those robes before I took a long fall off a very tall part of a cruiser?”

“Zero out of ten, do not recommend,” Shiro recites, then with a laugh, “I don’t know, I think you’d look pleasantly dramatic.”

“Alright,” Keith admits, swiping away the streaked tears. “You’d look okay in the--the armor and the cape.”

Shiro only laughs at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The concept that sparked this work. Even in a LotR au Keith's mama is still an alien.

**Author's Note:**

> Me, sitting in my classroom before lecture thinking about waking up at 2 a.m. thinking about NMR problems: ...I need to think about something else.  
> Title from Fall Out Boy's "Save Rock and Roll". Chapter title from the punintentional second name for "Your father would be proud" from the Rogue One soundtrack. Author is also wearing a Rogue One shirt (of Scarif...) today but that was unintentional.


End file.
